The extent of Labour's 'organised political hypocrisy' has been fully
revealed, writes Alan Cochrane.

When it comes to political hyperbole, Alex Salmond has consistently proved over the years that he is certainly no slouch.

But in describing yesterday’s massively embarrassing expose of the last Labour government’s attitude towards the release of the Lockerbie bomber as “the greatest example of organised political hypocrisy” that he’d ever seen, Scotland’s First Minister was stating nothing short of the truth.

In fact, it could easily be said that – for once – Mr Salmond had pulled his punches because the denouement by Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, left that Labour government with scarcely a shred of respectability or propriety in relation to Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi’s return to Libya in August 2009.

The Trappist vow taken by Prime Minister Gordon Brown about whether he agreed or disagreed with Megrahi’s release on compassionate grounds and the numerous mutterings from both him and his fellow ministers that the freeing of the convicted mass murderer was “nothing to do with us, Guv” were blown away as a cynical charade by Sir Gus.

Messrs Brown and Co were strictly and literally correct when they said at the time that the decision to free Megrahi had been a decision for the devolved administration in Edinburgh alone but Britain’s most senior civil servant said that the former Labour government did "all it could" to help Libya secure the release of the bomber. He added that this policy was progressively developed to facilitate the Libyans in their appeal to the Scottish government to release Abdelbaset al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

Related Articles

As this newspaper revealed last week, Bill Rammell, the Foreign Office minister, told the Libyans how to facilitate Megrahi’s release, even going so far as to tell them which section of Scottish criminal law would enable the bomber to be released on compassionate grounds.

Current Prime Minister David Cameron ordered Sir Gus to carry out a review of the papers following his visit to the United States last year and he and Hilary Clinton, the US Secretary of State discussed the issue over the weekend – both re-affirming their belief that the release had been a mistake.

In his report, Sir Gus said: "Policy was, therefore, progressively developed that HMG should do all it could, while respecting devolved competencies, to facilitate an appeal by the Libyans to the Scottish government for Mr Megrahi's transfer under the PTA (Prisoner Transfer Agreement) or for release on compassionate grounds."

In his statement last night Mr Brown said that the release of all the documents confirmed that he’d always said that the matter of Megrahi’s release was solely a matter for the Scottish ministers and that he’d never put any pressure on them.

Whilst, again, this may be strictly correct, it detracts not one jot from the fact that Mr Brown and his government were content to hang Mr Salmond and Kenny McAskill, his justice minister, out to dry over the release when all the time they were desperate for the bomber to be freed.

The overarching impression of the papers released yesterday was that the Labour government was “up to its neck in this shoddy business” , as Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary, said in the Commons yesterday. They wanted him back in Libya for commercial and diplomatic reasons.

But surely even now the conspiracy theorists must get close to accepting that the decision to free Megrahi – a decision that this observer supported – may have been wrong, as it must now be judged to be given that he’s still alive 18 months later. But it was done solely on compassionate grounds.

Sir Gus has made an accurate assessment of the papers before him but there is little doubt in my mind that the problem lies, as Mr Cameron said yesterday, not so much in what Labour’s leaders said at the time of the bomber’s release as what they didn’t say.

The papers reveal that there was a great deal of dissembling going on about what Labour ministers – including the then Prime Minister – said about the freeing of Megrahi and what part they’d played in discussing the bomber’s release with the Libyans.

Frankly, it paints a pretty shoddy picture. The SNP administration in Edinburgh freed Megrahi. But they did so with Her Majesty’s Government applauding silently from the sidelines.